TITLE:
Assessment of Climate Change over South America under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 Downscaling Scenarios
AUTHORS:
Sin Chan Chou, André Lyra, Caroline Mourão, Claudine Dereczynski, Isabel Pilotto, Jorge Gomes, Josiane Bustamante, Priscila Tavares, Adan Silva, Daniela Rodrigues, Diego Campos, Diego Chagas, Gustavo Sueiro, Gracielle Siqueira, José Marengo
KEYWORDS:
South America, Climate Downscaling, Climate Change Assessment, Climatic Extreme Indicators, Eta Model
JOURNAL NAME:
American Journal of Climate Change,
Vol.3 No.5,
December
31,
2014
ABSTRACT: Four sets
of downscaling simulations based on the Eta Regional Climate Model forced by two
global climate models, the HadGEM2-ES and the MIROC5, and two RCP scenarios—8.5
and 4.5, have been carried out. The objective of this work is to assess the
climate change over South America based on the Eta simulations. The future
changes are shown in timeslices of 30 years: 2011-2040; 2041-2070 and
2071-2100. The climate change response of the Eta simulations nested in HadGEM2-ES is larger than the Eta nested in MIROC5. Major warming area is located in the
central part of Brazil. In austral summer, the reduction of precipitation in
the central part and the increase in the southeastern part of the continent are
common changes in these simulations, while the EtaHadGEM2-ES intensifies the
decrease of precipitation in central Brazil, the Eta-MIROC5 expands the area of
increase of precipitation in southern Brazil toward the end of the century. In
austral winter, precipitation decrease is found in the northern part of South
America and in most of Central America, whereas the reduction in southeastern
South America is limited to near coastal region. The time series of
temperatures show that warming trends are larger in the Eta-HadGEM2-ES than in
the Eta-MIROC5 simulations. Heavier precipitation rates are projected in the
Central-South of Brazil toward the end of the century. Increase in the length
of consecutive dry days (CDD) in Northeast of Brazil and the decrease of
consecutive wet days (CWD) in the Amazon region are common features in these
simulations.